Nottinghamshire’s Second Eleven continue their early season fixtures with the arrival of MCC Young Cricketers for a pair of fixtures.
Firstly, the two sides will contest a 50-over Trophy match and captain Paul Franks is keen for his side to bounce back from their defeat against Yorkshire last week.
“Losing the one-day Trophy match was incredibly frustrating,” he said.
“We should have made more than the 247, which was par at best at what we know is a very quick-scoring ground.
“That came from not having those players who established themselves in the innings present at the right time and giving us a chance to push on to 300.”
Nottinghamshire will be boosted for this fixture by the availability of a number of the club’s senior professionals to the squad, Director of Cricket Mick Newell keen for his players to spend as much time in the middle as possible early in the season.
“We have a number of extra bodies available this week. Alex Hales and Samit Patel will be available for today’s match,” said Franks.
“It will mean that one or two of the younger players will have to take a step back, but we have a busy timetable of cricket.
“With the Academy’s competitive fixtures starting very soon, there will always be an element of rotation to squads at this stage.”
This year’s MCC Young Cricketers are something of an unknown quantity for Franks and his team, but he is expecting a stern test from the visitors, and a competitive contest for Nottinghamshire.
They vary greatly from year to year, but they will come here well drilled and be competitive,” he said.
“They’re a very professional organisation who pride themselves on being very well organised and working their players hard.
“With that in mind, our approach will be similar, we’ll have a game plan and work hard to execute it on the pitch.”
Nottinghamshire Second Eleven Trophy squad to face MCC Young Cricketers (from): Alex Hales, Sam Kelsall, Samit Patel, Sam Wood, Adam Tillcock, Hassan Azad, Brett Hutton, Paul Franks, Luke Wood, Tom Keast (+), Ben Kitt, Simon Webster.